Tidings of comfort and joy
by RavenclawConspiracy
Summary: Christmas traditions are important, the Quibbler is never completely wrong, and Sirius Black is awesome. Followup to God rest ye merry, Hippogriffs.
1. I Saw The Snidgets On Christmas Day

Universe: Canon, at the end of chapter 17 of Half-Blood Prince, during Christmas break.

Followup to: God rest ye merry, Hippogriffs. Read that first.

Author's Note: Christmas traditions are important, the Quibbler is never _completely_ wrong, and Sirius Black is awesome.

**I Saw The Snidgets On Christmas Day**

Three days after Christmas, in the afternoon, Harry was playing pickup Quidditch with everyone else, but as that didn't have a Snitch, he'd ended up as a Chaser, and had managed to collide with the tree being used as the other side's goal while trying to score, falling off his broom into a snowbank.

He felt fine, but Mrs. Weasley had sent him inside to warm up. As he drank some cocoa and watched the game through the kitchen window, Mr. Weasley came in and handed him another Christmas present, a very flat one wrapped in silver paper.

Mr. Weasley said it had been waiting at the edge of the wards when he apparated back for lunch, and he'd had it checked by Mad-Eye. But it was safe. He handed it to Harry and then ran off outside where everyone else was. There was a note attached to it.

_Harry_

_Sorry this is a late present, but it took me a while to find another copy. Records have a copyright charm on them so I couldn't duplicate mine._

_Thank you for helping me dance again. I danced with my father Christmas day._

_Happy Christmas._

_Really your friend,_

_Luna_

Harry smiled, and tore open the paper.

It was what he expected, a record with a cover that said:

_Stubby Boardman and the Hobgoblins_

_I Saw The Snidgets On Christmas Day_

And below there a man, presumably Stubby Boardman, who looked like a clean-cut, carefree version of Sirius. He was strumming a guitar and staring at a bird that Harry assumed was a Golden Snidget, which was slowly rotating its wings in front of him, in what appeared to be slow motion. He knew the Golden Snidget was the origin of the Snitch in Quidditch, and it did look almost exactly like one, with a round body and tiny wings.

Harry looked closely at Stubby. His nose was too pointed, his face was too narrow, and his eyes were all wrong, but Harry could see how someone could mistake Sirius for him.

He flipped it over to the back, and realized that Luna had also included a copy of the September 1995 Quibbler, which was apparently the one he'd seen on the Hogwart's Express that asked 'Sirius Black: Villain or Victim?' on the cover. He wondered if she had stacks of back-issues at her house, or she'd had her father run off another copy. Maybe she even helped print them. He made a note to ask her how all that worked.

He smiled, and set the Quibbler down on the kitchen table. Then he looked down the list of songs until he saw track #5, _God Rest Ye Merry, Hippogriffs_. Looking around, he realized the Weasley's didn't seem to have a record player. All their music was from listening to the Wizarding Wireless.

His heart fell for a second. Did Wizards even use record players? Maybe Luna's family was just strange. No, obviously Wizards had some way to buy music, or they wouldn't sell Wizarding records. Come to think of it, he remembered Lee making a comment about 'spinning records' at someone's wedding, and Lee was a pureblood, so clearly Wizards had used records at some time.

And they probably still used records, as it was unlikely Wizards had upgraded to CDs yet. Surely wizards were at least a decade behind Muggles. So they would still sell magical record players, and he had enough wizard money, he could buy one. Except, he recalled, he wasn't supposed to leave the Burrow.

Then he remembered that he'd seen a record player while cleaning Grimmauld Place, which they didn't throw out because it still appeared to work. Harry had thought it was just a narrow wooden cabinet until he'd seen Mr. Weasley open the top and poke inside, checking to make sure had its Muggle Artefacts license because it was charmed to work without cranking. Mr. Weasley had called it a 'Victrola'. And Harry now owned that.

He'd bring it here, the Weasleys could use it after he left if they wanted. It certainly wasn't doing anyone any good sitting at Grimmauld Place. But Harry had promised Dumbledore he wouldn't leave the Burrow, so someone else would have to go get it. And he wasn't sure he was ready to visit Grimmauld Place yet anyway. He hadn't been there since Sirius' death, and didn't look forward to it.

Holding the record, Harry went around looking for someone who was allowed to leave. He walked outside, and immediately ran across Lupin and Mrs. Weasley outside the kitchen door, standing in the snow. Mrs. Weasley was saying, "-can't keep this up, have you seen her? You need to talk-" and then noticed Harry and stopped talking. Harry had no idea who Mrs. Weasley was talking about, but suspected she wouldn't tell him, so didn't bother to ask.

Lupin seemed to be immensely relieved that Harry had interrupted. Harry thought it rather funny that even Lupin could get lectured by Mrs. Weasley. "What is it, Harry?"

Harry said, "I was wondering if someone could go get something from Grimmauld Place for me. I'm not supposed to leave."

Lupin ducked back inside the house, with Harry following him. Harry was sure he was attempting to try to escape Mrs. Weasley. She, meanwhile, had spotted something outside at the Quidditch game, and hurried off towards it.

"Certainly.", said Lupin. "That's your property, after all. What did you want?"

Harry held up the record. "The record player in the parlor. I got this for Christmas, and I-" but stopped, because Lupin's face had gotten the strangest look on it.

"Someone gave...gave you this?" Lupin asked in disbelief. "No one else even knows but...I don't...how did they..."


	2. Harry's parents

**Harry's parents**

Harry was confused. "I heard Sirius singing 'God rest ye merry, Hippogriffs' from this last Christmas, I didn't realize it was a real song until a few days ago when someone played this record for me."

"Sirius was singing that?" Lupin said, softly. "I must have missed it. Was he doing it in a strange bellowing voice?" Harry nodded.

Lupin looked around the empty kitchen, and said, "Harry, let me tell you a story." and motioned Harry to sit down.

They both did, and Lupin said "Your parents got married at the start of 1979. They had gotten engaged right after leaving Hogwarts in 77, and probably would have gotten married sooner, everyone else was getting married as fast as possible during the war, but your father would occasionally do _really_ stupid things, getting Lily upset at him for months. She almost called off the wedding at least twice."

Lupin looked careful at Harry, and Harry thought Lupin was trying to see if he was upset. But he come to realize, watching Ron and Hermione, that sometimes people could in love and yet, somehow, couldn't stand each other's company, so just nodded.

"Anyway, they got married in Febuary of 79, and Lily moved into the Potter family house at Godric's Hollow. The house where they...where You-Know-Who attacked two and a half years later." He paused for a second. "Sirius had his own apartment, over in Exmoor, but I suspect he was lonely."

"After your parents got married, he managed to keep himself away for eight months or so, deliberately limiting his visits. We would all come over and eat lunch every few days, Sirius, Peter.." His mouth twisted at Peter's name. "...and me, but otherwise we tried to give them some space to get to know each other as a married couple."

Harry interrupted, "I bet that wasn't Sirius' idea, was it?"

Lupin smiled. "It's amazing how much you've manage to figure out about how exactly our friendship worked. No, it was a suggestion of Lily's, given to me, and I managed to keep Sirius away. It seems strange, but when I made rules, Sirius would follow them, mostly. And Peter would do whatever everyone else was doing."

"I did this because James and Sirius together were trouble. You put them in a room together for half an hour, and they would invent some insane plan. In Hogwarts, it had been crazy pranks like sneaking into the Headmaster's office and attempting to hijack the school, or hiding every desk in the school." He noticed Harry's look of disbelief and chuckled. "That last one didn't work, and in fact resulted in them not being allowed to sleep in the Gyryffindor dorms for a week because they couldn't stop the last two dozen desks from following them around like ducklings."

"But just as often, their plans wouldn't work at all, and if I was with them, I could usually point out some small flaw in their plan, like the fact it violated the laws of magic. Or sometimes the laws of physics, or even the laws of basic logic. Peter, if he was there, would point out the other flaw, like it would kill everyone involved, or at least get them expelled." Lupin gave a little sad smile at that. "Peter was always the person who...thought through the practical consequences of their actions, and how they would get caught. While I was the smart person who they learned to run every plan by in case they had overlooked something that would make the plan itself a failure, and as their plans got bigger and bigger, it often turned out they had."

"Once we graduated, they most stopped pulling such pranks, except sometimes on each other. Now their idea of a good time was crazy near-suicidal attacks on Death Eaters strongholds. Lily tended to disapprove of these, but Sirius never-" Lupin looked a little uncomfortable, and started again "Don't get me wrong, Sirius was willing to be friendly with his best friend's girlfriend, and later, his best friend's wife. They got along well enough when James was there, and I even saw them being sociable a few times without him, but he basically ignored everything she said."

"She'd say it, he'd nod, and then do whatever he wanted. Even when she was Prefect. Even during her own wedding, when he was best man, and James had specifically told him to listen to her, he still ignored her, and almost caused a scene by making some entirely predictable comments to a bridesmaid he'd been told not to talk to by Lily, because Lily knew exactly what would happen if those two interacted again after their rather...hostile breakup."

"But I thought Lily a very sensible woman, and had always gotten along with her. And we had, when we were Prefects together, figured out a way to keep those two in check. I would tell Sirius what to do, and she would tell James, and between the two of us we kept them somewhat under control the last few years at Hogwarts, and we managed to keep them from getting killed in the war." Lupin caught himself. "I mean, we managed to keep them the various suicidal attacks they wanted to do. Obviously, I wasn't...able...to save James, or her. Or Sirius, really. Or..."

Harry nodded. "I understand." He knew Lupin had lost all his friends at once, three of them gone because they were betrayed by the remaining one, even if the facts were slightly different than believed at the time. One day Lupin had a group of friends, two days later, he didn't and he was back to being someone the entire Wizarding world distrusted, unable to get a good job or a stable place to stay. Sometimes he thought Lupin had come out even worse from Voldemort's attack on his parents than he had.

"But in November of 79, I left the country for a few weeks, on a mission for the Order to try to recruit werewolves for our side." Lupin looked into space for a second. "Which is almost exactly what I'm doing now for the Order. The more things change, the more they stay the same."

"Without my influence, by December Sirius had fallen back into old habits, possibly because he'd spent every Christmas with James and his family since his parents had disowned him. The Maruaders tended to get together for a few days around Christmas, none of us had much in the way of families. But Sirius had actually lived with James' family during Hogwart breaks after his family threw him out, and he was back to almost doing it now, just going back to his flat to sleep. So when I got back, I stopped by Godric's Hollow, and discovered Sirius and James plotting something. I suppose I was lucky that they hadn't ended up dead already on some mission. But before I could stop them, Lily pulled me aside."

Lupin looked straight at Harry. "Harry, your mother was slowly being driven insane. She was trying to start a family with James, trying to start Christmas traditions with her new husband. Being Muggle-born, she didn't know much about the Wizarding world, and she was trying to create a blend of Wizard and Muggle family traditions. I think in her head, she thought that Christmas would set the tone of all future ones." He smiled slightly. "And Sirius simply would not take a hint and leave them to their first Christmas alone."

Harry had to wonder what sort of traditions it would have been. Like the Weasley's, with the entire holidays turning into a giant party with friends and family? Or would it have been some solemn occassion? Would they have gone to a midnight service Christmas Eve? Would they sing hymns at home?

He realized he didn't even know if his parents had been Catholic or Anglican or something else. Or if wizards even did much in the way of religion. The Dursley's left him home alone while they went to church each Sunday, Anglican of course, but they had no religious beliefs, or at least never mentioned them. They went to church solely because that was what respectable people did.

"In fact," Lupin continued, "she _had_ started a family at the beginning of November, and you were going to be born seven months after Christmas, but she hadn't told anyone yet, not even James. Perhaps she didn't know, but witches usually know within a day or two because their magic feels odd, and there's a simple charm to confirm it."

"And James had been no help getting rid of Sirius, he'd nod and agree and say he was going to send Sirius on his way, and he'd half-heartedly try, but Sirius and James were both strong-headed, and James won't try that hard for something he didn't really want, and Sirius would end up staying, or at least coming back the next day."

"I got back and realized what was going on. When your mother pulled me to the side, I expected her to ask me to please, for the love of God, to get Sirius out of there before she killed him." Lupin took a breath. "What I didn't expect was for her to ask my help in to pulling a prank on him."


	3. The Prank

**The prank**

Harry blinked in disbelief. "My mother...wanted to pull a prank on Sirius?" He didn't know much about his mother, but what he did know, what he had seen and heard of her, always seem to star her as the more serious one, often to the point of scolding his father. He always imagined her as vaguely Hermione-like.

"Yes." Lupin answered. "Your mother had come up with a theory that I wasn't able to dismiss. She had figured out that in our little group, in the 'Marauders', you got respect based on how crazy your ideas were and if you could pull them off."

"This is why James and Sirius would constantly come up with crazy ideas, but listened to me, because if it wasn't for me half their plans would end in disaster. And I came up with an idea or two." Lupin looked down for a second. "And that was why no one really respected Peter, who could be convinced to go along with whatever scheme had been hatched unless it was dangerous, but never once thought of any schemes himself. He wasn't stupid, he just didn't ever have any ideas along those lines. Sometimes I wonder how things would have turned out if he'd ended up with friends that weren't trying to constantly top each other in a game he had no interest in..."

Lupin shook his head and looked back up. "Anyway, your mother had come up with the idea that if _she_ pulled a prank off on Sirius, he would respect her. I wanted to be able to disagree with her, but I realized she was right...that might actually work. It really didn't matter how good it was, as long as it wasn't a total failure." He took a deep breath. "She already had a plan, and wanted my help."

He waved at the record. "The Hobgoblins were the big wizard singing group of the mid-70s. You couldn't turn on the wireless, or walk past the girl's dorm at Hogwarts, without hearing Stubby Boardman singing in that strange echoing voice he had. The Hobgoblins did songs like 'And the Stars Followed Me Home', and, it's been so long, let me think. There was 'Your Magic Moves Mountains', which girls loved, and 'The Song isn't Over', an upbeat song about getting back together. In fact, your father played that a few times after the many times Lily swore she'd never speak to him again. It was mostly ballads, love songs, that sort of thing. He even did some old Muggle classics like 'Luck Be a Lady' and 'Are You Lonesome Tonight', you've probably heard those songs growing up with Muggles. The Hobgoblins were very popular, and Stubby was idolized."

"It had been much amusement in school that not only did Sirius look almost exactly like a younger version of Stubby, but shared the same initials, especially as Stubby signed off his live wireless concerts with 'And this is SB and the Hogoblins, signing off.'. In fact, for a while at Hogwarts, Sirius started saying 'And this is SB and the Maruaders, leaving the room.' in a passable impersonation. Or even 'And this is SB and the Maruaders, walking down the hall', which quickly got as annoying as it sounds. You said you heard Stubby sing?"

Harry nodded.

"Then you know how recognizable his voice ess, and Sirius' spoken imitation was...reasonably good. By the time we left Hogwarts in 77, we were getting tired of it. But around then, the Hobgoblins faded from the public eye, and Sirius stopped the imitation. Stubby's voice had started to give out, and he had to stop live performances in, I think 78, because people were throwing things at him, and the Hobgoblins split up soon after."

"And we had mostly forgotten all that by then...but not Lily. You see the Hobgoblins put out one last album, near the end of 1979. You've probably heard how it is, the music industry wanting to squeeze every last penny out of a name. They released this album, a collection of parody Christmas songs, which supposedly they recorded as a joke, never intending to release." Lupin said, tapping it. "And Lily had just bought it."

"So, we put the album on, and played it, and with a little cajooling, everyone was singing along. None of us could actually sing, but Sirius was the worse, especially as he insisted on trying to impersonate Stubby's very unique voice, which he could do fine while speaking, but absolutely could not while singing. It came out almost a crazed bellow. And, although we'd never realized it before, Sirius appeared completely tone deaf." Lupin thought for a second. "I'm not entirely certain how Lily knew Sirius was a bad singer before that, but she clearly did, and Sirius trying to sing in Stubby's voice just made it worse."

"Somewhere in there, I managed to pull James and Peter aside, and explain the prank, although I let him think I thought of it, and they agreed to stay out of the way. Christmas approached, and Sirius constantly was visiting at the Potters, and I was sleeping in their spare bedroom because I had lost my apartment right before leaving town for the Order's mission."

Harry knew that Lupin meant 'Because they learned I was a werewolf', but didn't say anything. Sometimes the way Lupin downplayed the way the world treated him made Harry angry. But Lupin was clearly enjoying telling the story, so he didn't want to interupt.

Lupin had continued "So over the next week, we all managed to convince him he sounded exactly like Stubby Boardman. It was amazing."

He paused in thought. "I don't know if Sirius was actually so tone deaf he couldn't tell how bad he was, or if he was so egotistical he thought he was better than he was, or what. But Lily had managed to figure out the perfect prank. The only question was how, and when, to spring the joke on him, so me and Lily were still planning. The denouncement of a practical joke is as important as joke itself, and I think we had something in the works involving a record deal with a fake record producer.".

"But I've forgotten what exactly we intended to do, because before we could, Sirius had an announcement. A week before Christmas, he announced that he had gotten a band and 'booked a gig' as a Stubby Boardman impersonator the night after next at a bar we'd never heard it. He gave us all a poster of himself singing and a pass to avoid the line.

"We had no idea what was going on, but dutifully showed up on time. It was a bar that has since closed, in Knockturn Alley, which wasn't quite as disreputable then as it is now. And we found ourselves in a line. We waved our passes and got in right before they closed the doors. The bar was packed with about fifty people. Sirius was there, talking to people who were, apparently, in his band, but hurried over and managed to get us a table. At this point, we were totally off balance, we had expected some sort of joke when we got there, but Sirius seemed to be singing tonight. With an actual band.

"Eventually, he got up on stage and said, in a reasonably good Stubby Boardman voice, 'This is Sirius Black and the Hippogriffs, and I'd like to welcome everyone and sing a song for you.', which is basically how Stubby opened his concerts. As he started singing, we listened carefully, because the only theory we could come up with is that Sirius had somehow gotten much better when we weren't paying attention."


	4. Last real Christmas

**Last real Christmas**

"Sirius hadn't gotten better. He had gotten worse, now that he wasn't singing along with the real Stubby on the record. He was really, really bad. The music was fine, the people playing the guitar and drums seemed very good, but he was possibly the worse singer I'd ever heard. Words cannot express how bad he was. He would forget the tune, or come in early, or get too far from his microphone so you couldn't hear him, which frankly provided a bit of a relief from his singing." Lupin shook his head. "And the crowd loved him. The _actual_ Stubby Boardman wouldn't have gotten such a reaction at this point in his career."

"It was almost surreal, sitting there, listening to the crowd cheer and applaud. After about thirty minutes, he finished with-" Lupin tapped the record "_God rest ye merry, Hippogriffs_, and got a standing ovation at the end, as he said with 'And this is SB and the Hippogriffs, signing off'."

"After the show ended, he waved off requests of autographs from the crowd, and came and sat with us. He stared at James for a bit, and said, 'So, how was my singing?'. And suddenly, as a group, we realized we had been had. As Sirius then explained, he had rented not only a band, which was a real band I've forgotten the name of, but he'd rented the _entire bar_ for the night, and paid _four dozen_ people to come here and cheer him. He'd even paid more people to stand in line outside. And with that, he stood up and waved at them, and they all cheered again."

Harry had to laugh, and Lupin started laughing along with him.

"Anyway," said Lupin after a few minutes of laughing, "that wasn't the end of the story. Sirius thanked them, paid them, and directed them all out the door, and then sat down again in the mostly empty bar. He admitted we'd managed to fool him at first, he'd actually believed he could sing, but he, for some unknownable reason, owned a Muggle tape recorder, and had recorded himself singing, and realized that he was horrible. So he had reverse pranked James back, and said, 'That, James, only scores acceptable. I fell for it at first, but you should have sprung the trap earlier, because I figured it out before the end.'."

"However, James shook his head and pointed at me, and Sirius looked startled. I almost never came up with pranks, and hadn't done one since Hogwarts. But then I shook my head and pointed to Lily, grinning, and she nodded. Sirius and James' jaw dropped, and Sirius started sputtering, and finally said 'Well, that certainly exceeds expectations, Lily.', and gave her a hug."

Lupin paused for a second, and came to a decision. "I probably shouldn't tell you this. At that point, an incredibly attractive woman came up behind Sirius and Lily and said, 'Hey, Stubby, how about a hug for me, too. And a kiss.'. And then she got a little lewd about what else she wanted from him. Sirius was confused, and then we all realized that she _actually thought_ that he was Stubby Boardman. She had somehow got in without being one of Sirius' ringers, and had been completely smashed during the singing. She'd probably been there all day, in fact."

"He turned to the group, and said, 'Correction: Outstanding, Lily. Simply outstanding.' and draped his arm over her shoulders and lead her off. We sat there and waited, but ten minutes later he sent us a note telling us to go home, and he didn't reappear until Christmas Eve, which was a bit of a relief to Lily."

Harry hadn't stopped laughing this entire time.

Lupin concentrated, "Sirius introduced us eventually. He dated her on and off for about a year and a half, although Sirius was never serious about any relationship he was in, and didn't often bring her around. And he did repeatedly explain who he really was, but she was a very confused individual even when sober, so it's possible she didn't believe him. At least once, she seemed to think he was Stubby in hiding pretending to be a person named Sirius Black. I think she'd been hit with one memory charm too many at some point."

Lupin continued, "And Lily was right, Harry. From then on, Sirius paid attention to your mother. He started treating her as one of us, instead of just someone who had dated and married one of us. I think that was the reason she let James pick him to be your Godfather, and why she was okay with him being the secret keeper, although that obviously didn't work out that way."

"And that Christmas, as we were all sitting around eating dinner together, Lily announced she was pregnant, and Sirius sang _God rest ye merry, Hippogriffs _to you, or at least to your mother's stomach. And that was the Marauder's last real Christmas." He frowned at the end.


	5. Disaster

**Disaster**

He sighed. "But a prophecy had been made before all this, Dumbledore told you about it, and he's quite right in that I don't need to know all the details, so don't tell me. But none of us knew anything about that at the time. When you were born in the middle of the next year, Dumbledore had realized your family was a target, and you started being protected, although the Fidelius Charm wouldn't be setup until the year after that."

"As we were supposed to keep away from the Potters, because everyone knew we were friends and thus would lead the Death Eaters right to them, the group somewhat fell apart. James had always been the middle of of the group, and without him it floundered. Although it's possible we would have anyway, because having a child changed James much more than getting married did. Instead of crazy plans for himself, he had started making crazy plans for you."

Lupin laughed. "The plans were just as crazy, like you being the youngest Seeker in Hogwart's history, or them bringing back the Tri-Wizard cup and you winning that. Or you running a rebellion against an evil Hogwarts Headmaster and/or the Ministry of Magic. Or you basically having the same sorts of adventures he had, but fighting You-Know-Who while you did them, instead of just doing them for a lark. Using his invisibility cloak and the Marauders Map."

Harry had to laugh at that.

Lupin shook his head. " Somedays I'm convinced that James managed to find a real genie somehow and your entire life is a _very poorly_ worded wish of his."

"I thought James' change was for the best, and Sirius seemed to understand it but was disappointed a little. The rest of the Maruaders, or at least me and Sirius, tried to keep the group going, but that fell apart when someone, who we now know was Peter, leaked some very important Order information in November." Lupin frowned. "So by Christmas 1980, everyone, including a five-month old you, just had a small Christmas as a meal at Sirius' small flat. A rather unenjoyable meal because I suspected Sirius, and he suspected me, James and Lily refused to suspect anyone they knew, and Peter was just acting weird and jumpy for a reason that is obvious in retrospect. The situation never got any better, the group kept fragmenting, and you know what happened next year at Halloween."

"But a year earlier, in the Christmas of 79, we were all happy. No one was under the threat of death, at least no more than anyone else, and the Maruaders had gained two members, your mother, and you, even if you weren't born yet."

Lupin looked serious for a minute, "Sirius once confessed to me that he couldn't remember a lot of happy times. He knew he was your Godfather, but could barely remember ever seeing you as a baby. He knew he was friends with all of us at Hogwarts, but couldn't remember much of that either, except that he'd wrongly suspected me. The Dementors sucked almost all his happy memories out of him. For a while, his only slightly happy thought was thinking about killing Peter. I suspected he didn't remember Lily's prank at all. But if he sung that song last year, at Christmas, he remembered more than I thought."

Harry wanted to believe it, but didn't really. He grabbed the Quibbler and flipped through it, "I don't know, I think this article reminded him, Mr. Weasley gave it to him in September."

Lupin read the letter quickly and his eyes widened in shock. "That was her! The girl he dated was named Doris! Although I guess she's gotten married since then, because that wasn't her last name back then. Or maybe she just forgot her own name."

He reread the letter carefully. "She was wrong about the date. They'd broken up months earlier, Sirius had said something one of the few times I saw him over the summer. Perhaps she meant the previous Halloween. She was always getting dates wrong, along with everything else. The idea that Sirius went on a date the night after your parents were murdered is insane, even if he hadn't been busy tracking down Peter." 

He down looked at the table. "Did you know that he came to find me the night your parents had been murdered? But I had been kicked out of another place and hadn't told him that or where I was, because I didn't trust him. Two days later, right after he got sent to Azkaban, I got a letter from my previous landlady telling me someone had show up demanding she tell me where I was, and she said if my friends kept it up she'd 'report' me, whatever she meant by that." He laughed. "I was tempted to write back and mention that the man who'd been looking for me was Sirius Black, who had killed a dozen people after he'd talked to her, and was now in Azaban, just to scare her."

"I thought for the longest time I had been lucky and he had shown up to kill me like he did Peter. But he was trying to find me to join him in tracking down Peter. If I'd been there, or if I told him where I was, I could have talked him out of it, I could have told someone, I could have done the smart thing. And even if I hadn't been able to stop him, I would have known the truth and tried to keep him from Azkaban."

"I should have been there. I should have trusted him." He hit the table with his fist. Harry had never really seen Lupin upset before.

Lupin stood up abruptly. "I'm going to go get that record player for you. And maybe something else..." He trailed off, thinking. "I'll be back in a bit."

He threw some Flue powder on the fireplace and disappeared to "Kramic Storage and Rental", instead of Grimwauld Place, which slightly confused Harry. But he tracked down Mrs. Weasley and told her that a record player was showing up, and roughly the size of it, so she moved the Wizarding Wireless over a few feet.


	6. Tidings of comfort and joy

**Tidings of comfort and joy**

But it was a few hours before Lupin showed back up, and it had started snowing again. Everyone was sitting inside when the Knight Bus pulled up and Lupin got out, yelling towards the house, hovering the record player behind him. Everyone ran out, and as the Weasleys manuveured it into its new home, Lupin stopped Harry outside.

"Sorry it took so long, but I was trying to find this, and everything is a mess in my storage unit. On the plus side, if I'd known where it was, I would have thrown it away when I thought Sirius was a murderer." He pulled out a frayed poster from his pocket, and unrolled it.

_Sirius Black and the Hippogriffs_

_Live music in the style of Stubby Boardman_

_One night only at Desmond's Place_

_Monday, December 22_

_Two drink minimum_

And below that was a picture of a much younger Sirius, silently singing in front of a brick wall.

Lupin and Harry stared at it for a second. Lupin said, "You know, I once had a nightmare he'd continued his 'career' and I was trapped at one of his concerts, if you can believe that. And that was when I thought he was a murderer, and yet my nightmare was him singing."

Lupin looked Harry in the eyes, "That article might have triggered his memory. But I checked, Grimmauld Place didn't have this record in it, and this record was a near-complete failure and it's unlikely anyone would be playing it in the present day. The only place Sirius would have ever heard this song would be with the Maruaders, when he was singing it. So the fact that Sirius remembered the actual words to this rather obscure song means he was associating it with how he was feeling at the time. Happiness and friends and Christmas."

"And you, Harry. Like I said, the first thing he ever said to you, before you were even born, was singing that song. Horribly, flatly, singing that song."

Lupin said 'Geminio' and produced a duplicate, and gave Harry the original. "You can keep the original, I don't really have anywhere to put a poster up and I lose them when...when I do put them up."

Harry stared at it for a second, thinking about how Lupin couldn't keep a home. He didn't understand why he could put up with people treating him like that. This made him think about Luna, who had the same sort of calm acceptance of her fate. Luna, and how she'd been upset that the Quibbler had been wrong.

"Can you make another copy of this?" Lupin nodded and did so, and they went inside the back way, as apparently the Victrola was having trouble getting around the sheer number of chairs, and the sheer number of people trying to get it around the chairs, in the Weasley's cramped living room.

Harry handed Lupin the record from the kitchen table as Lupin went in to help. Harry said "I'll be there in a second, if you could put this on."

But first, Harry had something to do. He wrote a short note, thinking carefully how to phrase it.

_Luna_

_Thank you for the record, we're going to listen to it shortly. The song listing looks hilarious._

_I owe you a real present, but I thought you might want to see this. The Quibbler was almost entirely correct, even when no one believed it, not even us. _

_As you can see from the poster, Sirius Black apparently had a short career as a Stubby Boardman impersonator. So while he was not actually Stubby Boardman, it was an entirely understandable mistake. _

_A small correction appears to be in order in next month's Quibbler. Let's hope this tiny error doesn't tarnish the Quibbler's reputation._

_Happy Christmas._

_Also really your friend,_

_Harry_

He clipped that to the rolled up duplicated poster, and handed it to Hedwig, who had somehow known he was writing a letter and shown up. From the living room he heard _God Rest Ye Merry, Hippogriffs_ start up. Lupin had apparently picked it for the first song.

He smiled as he heard everyone singing offkey along with it, most people not even knowing the words, and some apparently under the impression it was the non-parody version. He walked to the living room and joined in.

His family had given him some Christmas traditions after all.

_God rest ye merry, hippogriffs, let no one you offend._

_For if they do you will attack those who condescend._

_To keep you all from biting us we bring you all as friends._

_O tidings of comfort and joy,_

_comfort and joy,_

_O tidings of comfort and joy._

_On mountain peak in forest deep, a phoenix can be found._

_You live forever but you now are old and brown._

_We bring you all these words until your youth can come around_

_O tidings of comfort and joy,_

_comfort and joy,_

_O tidings of comfort and joy._

_Shrinking in the corner, a moke hides in the room_

_Shy as violets, we will hurt you, that you do assume_

_But now we give you these words instead of your expected doom_

_O tidings of comfort and joy,_

_comfort and joy,_

_O tidings of comfort and joy._


End file.
